Overwhelm

Does overwhelm bring out the control freak in you? 

Lord, does it bring out the control BITCH in me!  I could write pages and pages about why it does it, what I do to deal with it and most of all I can make lists and schedules.  But, I suspect that my writing pages and pages is in fact a sign of overwhelm.  It is as if all those words will lead me out of the town called Overwhelm and into the State of Bliss.

Language has such clear structure and orderliness to it. Writing gives me such great sense of power over my mind and better yet, it means that I can lay on the couch, feeling important, while nothing else gets done. 

Action can help overwhelm but mostly it just leads to more confusion and indecision. Which do I do first? Gosh, maybe I'd better sit down and write a list to sort out my priorities.  Pick one?  Okay, but what about those twenty other balls I've got tossed into the air?

The trick is to think of overwhelm as distraction from the thread I mentioned a few posts back.  But for those of you who are too overwhelmed to add looking for that post to their list, here's my idea once again.

Your heart has been whispering to you since you were a baby.  Basically, our heart's desire is a really crappy communicator.  Most of the time it is too quiet to hear, other times it is screaming at you so loudly that all you can do is shut it out.  The rest of the time it just sits there resisting all your attempts to do anything other than obey it's indistinct, difficult to achieve and seemingly illogical demands.  Still, our hearts beat for one thing only and that one thing is to achieve your heart's desire. 

I think of my heart's desire as a thread and the actuality of it as the eye of a needle.  If I can get that thread through the needle, I will be living my heart's desire and it will be very fine indeed. 

The problem is that I am trying to thread this needle in the dark, with a lot of noisy, bumping, irritating things that keep getting in the way (my bad habits).  Not only that, but my hands are shaky, the thread keeps sticking to my callouses and worst of all my body is cramping up from the effort.  

Now add people, animals, bills, dishes, etc. to the mix and you have what I call a challenging situation in which to thread a needle.  A.K.A. Overwhelm.

The only way to thread a needle under these conditions is to keep your focus on the thread, your hand and the eye of the needle- not the other side of it, the front of it.  It requires a combination of soft and hard focus.  Sticking out your tongue and shutting one eye also helps.  Breathe, believe, and most of all go slow- especially when that tiny end sticks out on the other side for you to grab.

In short, when overwhelmed you must concentrate on the really, really important thing in your life: your heart's desire.

If it's hard to hear try just sitting still and listen to its beating.  Then do exactly what it tells you.  You'll know it's the real thing because it will almost always start with the phrase, "trust me".

Good luck!

Faith in the Space

I recently had some weird heart issues- of the physiological kind. I have a right bundle blockage which means that the left and right ventricles are not in sync.  Combine it with a wicked chest cold and you get heart palpitations and shortness of breath of a scary sort.


My relationship, my writing career, my income, my farm, my exercise program, my horses' training- nothing's lining up with where I think I ought to be.

It makes me wonder which came first. My life being out of alignment or my heart beating whacky?

When I had my first heart palpitation this last week, it made me so weak I couldn't stand for long and it caused me to be out of breath for fifteen minutes. All I could do was think "oh please beat, don't stop, just keep beating."   It didn't hurt, but it was very, very real.

In that fifteen minutes I realized all I ever needed to know about faith. Faith is the space between heartbeats. We all assume the next beat will come and so we run through life chasing our beliefs with confidence in the eternal nature of our heart. It rarely lets us down!

When we get afraid, our hearts beat hard, almost as if it were cheering us on from the sidelines. "I'm still here!!" The beating of our hearts lets us know when we are in love and comforts us when we are sad. It is something you feel in the night when you hold your lover tight. It's all about the beat, man!

But when my heart seemed to stop, I realized that the beat is merely the reward for surviving the dark before the dawn. It's the prize for not quitting before the miracle. The real moment of truth, the absolute test of faith, lies in the space between beats. Take some time and feel when you heart isn't beating.

Quiet in there isn't it?

It's when there is no hope that faith carries us to the glory.

Times are tough. It looks bad, really bad. But here's my challenge:

What if this is just the space between heartbeats?

Focus on your faith, whatever form that takes. See your dreams like a thread that you are trying to poke through the eye of a tiny needle, in the dark, on a bumpy road, with screaming kids. Ignore it, focus on the thread and the eye of the needle.


Have faith, the miracle is waiting on the other side.